Rules

TIME FRAME

All eligible work must be implemented, published or broadcast between January 2015 and the day of submission. If a long-term strategy was developed prior to January 2015 and hasn’t previously been entered, it is eligible for entry. If you entered your work in 2016 or 2017 and didn’t win an award, you may revise and re-enter your project. Entries that have won in previous years may not be resubmitted.

QUICK FACTS

Choose from four divisions and 28 categories.

Trained evaluators will review your entry and provide you with solid feedback.

You may enter multiple categories within one division or across divisions.

Evaluation is based on IABC’s Global Seven-point Scale of Excellence for strategic planning and execution.

Scores for Communication Management, Communication Research, and Communication Training and Education entries are based equally on the work plan and the work sample.

For entries in Communication Skills, the score is based on the work sample’s creativity, professional execution and alignment.

For student entries, 35 percent of the score is based on the work plan and 65 percent on the work sample.

Entry scores for awards:

Award of Merit: 5.25 to 5.74 out of 7

Award of Excellence: 5.75 and above

THE RULES

You must upload your entry and pay the registration fee before the deadline noted. Full payment must be received for all entries you submit before or on the closing date to be eligible for evaluation.

Work plans for Divisions 1, 2 and 3 are limited to four pages using a font size no smaller than 10-point and margins no less than 0.5 inch (1.27 cm). A template is available here.

For Division 4, Communication Skills, you will need to submit a brief entry form on the awards entry website. A preview of the online entry form is available here.

Award submissions must be in English, French and Spanish. Unfortunately we cannot accept entries in other languages at this time.

Work done for IABC at the international level is not eligible for this program.

If the electronic files contain viruses, if they disable or require disabling of any part of the computer system used during evaluation, or if evaluators cannot view work samples using the instructions provided.

If you are a consultant and your work was done for a client, you must include client permission for your entry, or it may be disqualified.

STUDENT ENTRIES

A student or a group of students may submit entries. At the time the work was created, the student must have been attending school full time or part time, working toward a degree at a college, university or other educational institution. Entrants who were enrolled as a student but have professional communication experience or are employed in the communication profession must submit their entry as a professional member or non-member.

Work produced for educational courses, a club or volunteer association, an internship, or commercial and non-commercial activities, including work for an IABC chapter or region, is eligible for submission.

If the assignment was not fully implemented, please make note of this to the evaluators. It will not disadvantage your entry, however you must show how the program would have been evaluated, had it been implemented in practice.

Professors, lecturers or advisers may not enter on behalf of a student.